HISTORY AND DETAILS OF WHALING. 265 



when the fish must have heen struck on the Atlantic side, it 

 was argued, therefore, that there was a north-west passage by 

 which the whales passed from one side to the other, since the 

 stricken animal could not have had the harpoon in him long 

 enough to admit of a passage around either Cape Horn or the 

 Cape of Good Hope. 



"Thus the fact was approximately established that the har- 

 pooned whales did not pass around Cape Horn or the Cape of 

 Good Hope, for they were of the class that could not cross the 

 equator. In this way we are furnished with circumstantial 

 proof affording the most irrefragable evidence that there is, at 

 times at least, open water communication through the Arctic 

 Sea from one side of the continent to the other ; for it is known 

 that the whales cannot travel under the ice for such a great 

 distance as is that from one side of the continent to the other. 



"But this did not prove the existence of an open sea there ; 

 it only established the existence — the occasional existence, if 

 you please — of a channel through which whales had passed. 

 Therefore we felt bound to introduce other evidence before we 

 could expect the reader to admit our proof, and to believe with 

 us in the existence of an open sea in the Arctic Ocean. 



" There is an under current setting from the Atlantic through 

 Davis's Strait into the Arctic Ocean, and there is a surface cur- 

 rent setting out. Observations have pointed out the existence 

 of an under current there, for navigators tell us of immense 

 icebergs which they have seen drifting rapidly to the north, 

 and against a strong surface current. These icebergs were 

 high above the water, and their depth below, supposing them 

 to be parallelopipeds, was seven times greater than their height 

 above. No doubt they were drifted by a powerful under cur- 

 rent." 



Dr. Kane reports an open sea north of the parallel of 82°. 

 To reach it, his party crossed a barrier of ice 80 or 100 

 miles broad. Before reaching this open water, he found the 

 thermometer to show the extreme temperature of 60° below 



